The Alternative Public Website

Download

Version 5.01 can be downloaded from here. (Updated dd/MM/yyyy). Please note All files have changed so you will need to do a full upgrade from previous versions. Please read the section on adding your own pages.

Latest Version

The latest version of the APW is 5.01. This version includes a number of improvements on the structure of each page, the menu and consolidates the styles to avoid duplication and improve consistency.

v5.01 Changes

Installing

This simply involves unzipping the downloaded file to a webhost. It will extract into a folder called apw so bear this in mind when choosing a location for your site.

Private local webhost

If the host is on your local machine, then simply make sure that there is not an existing folder called apw. You will be able to view the site using your <local address>/apw/ but hold off for a while.

Public Domain

If you have uploaded to a public domain, it is extremely likely that your website data will be somewhere else, In this case, unless you can upload two sets of data, one to your existing public site and one set to the apw folder, then you will not see active data and some features may appear not to work until you have configured the APW.

Until you configure the site, it will be most unlikely that you will see any data

Configuration

Unlike previous versions of the APW, the configuration settings are now held in a separate file: config.js

This file is loaded early on in the process so ensuring that all settings are available and used correctly. At the very least you will have to configure where the APW can find your uploaded CumulusMX data and NOAA Reports. This section deals only with these crucial elements even though the whole cmxConfig structure is shown.

DataPath

IMPORTANT You must tell the APW where you upload the various files used to supply data to your site.

Entries starting with a '/' are treated as absolute. This must be the absolute path to the required files from your websites home folder.
Otherwise entries will be treated as a relative path, i.e. relative to the apw folder. They can include '..' to go back up the folder tree if required.

NOAAPath

IMPORTANT As for your data, you need to tell APW where you upload your NOAA Reports.

By default, NOAA Reports are uploaded to a sub-folder of the data folder but this is configurable by you so do make sure that you use the correct path.

NOTE The Moon image is always uploaded to the images folder in the data folder - this is not configurable by you.

Other configuration settings

These are explained in more detail in the Configuration page.

let cmxConfig = {
    //  Edit this to set your required configuration
    "Custom": {
        "SideMenu": true,       // Set to true to use a sidebar menu
        "BannerStyle": "thin",  // Accepts 'thin' to reduce the height of the banner; only on sidebar navigation
        "Theme": "",            // Set to the name of an existing theme WITHOUT 'css'
        "Logo": "",             // Set to the absolute or relative path and name of the image to use OR leave blank
        "BannerImage": "",      //  As above or leave blank
        "BannerPosition":"center bottom 40%",   // Use allowable css values including units
    },
    "DataPath": "",             // Set to the absolute or relative path of your data
    "Geometry": {
        "StaticHead": true,     // true or false accepted
        "StaticFoot": true,     // true or false accepted
        "PaddingTop": 2,        // Numeric value only (real numbers accepted but ignored if using px as unit)
        "PaddingBottom": 1,     // Numeric value only ( ditto )
        "Units": "em",          // Accepts any valid css unit 
    },
    "Gull": {                   // Affects the standing gull only
        "Animation": "",        // Values: Blank, 'Expand', 'Enter left', 'Enter right' or 'Drop' only
        "Speed": 5,             // Positive numeric values only (can be real)
        "OnTop": false,         // true or false
    },
    "Panels": {
        "Shadows": "",          // Blank, Basic or Enhanced only
        "VariableHeight": true, // true or false
    },
    "Menu": "js/menu.js",       // Relative path and name of menu script.
    "NOAAPath": "Reports/",     // Absolute or relative path to your NOAA Reports
}

NOTE

The default cmxConfig object assumes that your data is uploaded to the same APW folder; that the moon image is uploaded to apw/images/, and that NOAA Reports are uploaded to apw/Reports/. If this is not the case then you will need to make changes to the above settings.

cmxSession

This is not shown above but follows on from the cmxConfig object. This is used internally by the APW and generally does not need editing.

Oaktree Weather Systems

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